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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26809582">Align the Stars</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/JSinister32/pseuds/JSinister32'>JSinister32</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>After the Fall, Anal Sex, Don't copy to another site, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff and Smut, Hannibal Lecter Loves Will Graham, Happy Ending, Light Angst, M/M, Murder Husbands, Sex, Will Graham Loves Hannibal Lecter, long conversations, under the stars</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-04</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 08:47:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,641</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26809582</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/JSinister32/pseuds/JSinister32</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>On a hilltop beneath the stars, above their current city, Hannibal and Will discuss life, death and love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Will Graham &amp; Hannibal Lecter, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>125</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Align the Stars</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This ficlet used to belong to a collection I have since disassembled, with the belief that these stories deserve to live as their own separate entities.  If you've read it before and enjoyed it, you can now add kudos to the individual stories.  </p><p>NOTE:  I absolutely hate having to add this note in my stories, just so you all know.  I do not allow translations or copies to other sites.  If you find my work anywhere other than AO3, please let me know.  Thank you for understanding.</p><p>Hearts and Body Parts,<br/>JM</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>You don’t find love, it finds you.</em><br/>
<em>It’s got a little bit to do</em><br/>
<em>With destiny, fate and what’s </em><br/>
<em>Written in the stars.</em><br/>
<em>-Anais Nin</em>
</p>
<hr/><p>“Did you really think I was going to kill you?  After the Red Dragon, I mean.”  Hannibal glanced down to where Will sat next to him on their blanket.  For a moment he didn’t speak, but simply stared, awed at the sight before him.  <em>The marks of the world before are beginning to fade, and how much more you have become.  Dare I answer with the truth, or should I leave that world in its place; behind us while the future lies ahead?</em>  He decided for the truth.<em> We’ve come too far for omissions. </em></p><p>“I didn’t know what was going to happen.  After the Dragon, you were both more and less than yourself, being pulled equally in two directions: the world in which we inhabit now, and the world you left behind.  Had you chosen to follow the direction you left, there was a very good possibility that I would not have survived that night on the cliffs.  You could have stabbed me, shot me, pushed me to the depths of the waters alone.”  The older man shrugged and turned his eyes back towards the skies, the gesture meaning nothing and everything.  “All of these occurrences would have ended the same.  I would not be here, and you would not be who you are meant to be.”  Will studied his face in the moonlight, watched as his eyes filled with the pale light of the stars swirling above them, washing them black.  <em>Blood in the moonlight</em>, he thought fondly.  The face was one that he could not live without seeing for the rest of his days.  He followed his gaze upwards, mapping the skies above them, remembering.</p><p>“You know, when I was searching for you in Europe, there were so many thoughts that occupied to me while I searched.  I looked up at the night sky there too,” he murmured, eyes bright in the spiraling darkness.  “The constellations I studied, and mapped.  The ones I wanted to remember.  I wondered, on those long nights in the fields of Lithuania, if you could see them too.  I wondered if our stars were the same, wherever you were.”  He leaned back on his elbows against the blanket they had laid out in the vast and open field, a place to watch the stars move across the skies.  They agreed they needed somewhere peaceful to be honest with one another, open and bare the way the skies spread above them.  A conversation of such magnitude was meant to take place somewhere of equal importance.  This calm and empty space suited both men just fine after the confines they had escaped.  </p><p>Hannibal shifted closer on the blanket, gesturing with a small inclination of his head.  Will took the invitation for what it was and placed his head in the older man’s lap, fully resting with the most perfect view in existence; the eyes of the man he loved framed by the heavens above.  Hannibal watched him carefully, cautious contentment etched into his features.  He carded his fingers though Will’s curls, sifting through the silky and wild tresses.  They didn’t touch, not beyond perfunctory examinations and bandage dressings in those first few weeks.  Their bond was fragile, tentative.  This first offering of intimacy was everything it needed to be.</p><p>“I believe some of our stars will always be the same,” Hannibal said quietly.  His fingers continued to play through the soft curls as he relished in their texture and the freedom to touch.  Will closed his eyes in contentment, listening.  “You entered the foyer of my mind and stumbled down the hall of my beginnings.  You searched for me in places I had not existed in years, looking for the meaning behind who I have been to you and to others.  In looking for me in those places, you found something unexpected.”  Will nodded, his eyes still closed.  His lips parted, their small inhalation holding Hannibal’s attention.  His fingers trembled against the younger man’s scalp as a wave of affection coursed through him.  <em>It will always be you.</em></p><p>“Did Chiyoh tell you about her charge?  What became of him?”  Hannibal’s eyes shone.</p><p>“She didn’t have to tell me.  I made the trip home when I discovered you had been there.  I was curious if your mark was visible on my home as much as it was on me.”  He grinned wryly.  “I found your moth man, or what was left of him after the snails took to him. Your work was quite exquisite, and altogether unexpected.  I knew then what could transpire between us if you were to let yourself be who you are, and not who you think you are supposed to be.”  The corner of Will’s mouth lifted in a small smile.  Hannibal swallowed hard, following the movement of his lips.  The careful contact they had established in the field was making him ravenous, and every move the younger man made was bringing his hungers closer to the surface.  It may break soon, but he could rein it in for a time.  Long enough to be sure of Will’s intentions.</p><p>“I made him for you, you know,” Will said, the smile remaining on his lips.  He stretched, arching his back and lifting his arms over his head.  Hannibal watched his movements with careful eyes.  His gaze snagged when Will’s shirt rode up, exposing a delectable stripe of skin.  When the younger man settled, it took the doctor a moment before he could meet his eyes.  </p><p>“Are you certain he was made with me in mind, and not your own transformation?”  Will raised a hand to Hannibal’s cheek, stroking across warm, stubbled skin.  The touch, while innocent, was startlingly intimate, the stuttered breath inhaled more affecting than a kiss.</p><p>“He was a symbol of my transformation, to be sure.  I didn’t make him for me to see, though.  I made him for you.  I knew you would return.  I knew you had to see what I was becoming so you could one day save me from myself.”  Hannibal’s eyes closed at the gentle brush of fingers against his face.  He couldn’t help but wonder if he was the cobra, being carefully lured in.  He wasn’t sure he cared.</p><p>“And what were you becoming, Will?” The words came out as a whisper on the breeze that stirred Hannibal’s hair.  It was finally beginning to get back to it’s normal length, losing the generic cut it had when he had been incarcerated; a mark of how much time had passed since their escape.  Will’s fingers eased along his skin, soft and gentle, coaxing.  The touch was ambrosia to his soul, healing a place he hadn’t realized had been wounded.  The soft sound he unconsciously made caught Will’s breath.  Reaching with his arms, he pulled until the older man was laying prone, his head resting on the cushion of his arm.  Will curled up against his side, his head on the upper swell of his chest.  Their bodies fit together as if they had lain like this a thousand times, two perfect pieces combined to make a whole.  Hannibal’s arm wrapped around his shoulders, his hand stroking against his back.  Will’s arm encircled the other man’s waist, fingers slyly skating the edge of his sweater in search of the skin beneath.</p><p>“You didn’t answer my question.”  Hannibal’s voice was rough, his accent thicker than normal.  Affected.  Will smiled against his chest as his fingers danced their way across the warm expanse of skin, exploring the firm planes of the doctor’s stomach.</p><p>“Remind me of what you’d like to know,” he said, raising his head to meet Hannibal’s softly swollen pupils.  The other man licked his lips, eyes tracking Will’s movements as he stared at his mouth.  Hannibal took a steadying breath, aware of the darkening gaze trained on his movements.</p><p>“What were you becoming?”  The question was whispered, the words carried away on the breeze.  Will let them wash away, as he gazed into the maroon eyes above him. </p><p>“Yours, Hannibal.  I was becoming yours.”  The sparks that danced in the older man’s eyes were more beautiful than the glittering stars above.  Hannibal smiled, the question unasked.  Will nodded.  “Kiss me.”  Hannibal rolled them over gently, pinning the younger man beneath him.  The kiss they shared, tender and full of unspoken longing, marked the end of what had been.  As the kiss deepened, their existence as it would become, stretched before them, vast and mysterious.  When their clothing was shed, skin laid bare beneath the heavens, the chains that held Hannibal’s heart together cracked and fell away, leaving him feeling empty and cleaner than he had felt in decades.  When he entered Will, claiming him in the most intimate way one can belong to another, he felt that empty space fill with an emotion he didn’t want to name, something too large and fragile to be spoken aloud.  When Will rolled them over and climbed on top of him, bracing his hands on his chest as he rode him, the emotions threatened to spill out of his lips.  It took the last scrap of his self control to contain them.  When Will climaxed, spilling against his chest in his ecstasy, the words came easily from the younger man’s lips.  They burned along his skin, and drove him over the edge, clinging to the affirmation that it was not a dream.</p><p>“I love you, I love you. I love you.  It was always you.  It will always be you.  I love you.”  As they held each other, shaking in the aftermath, Hannibal’s entire being filled with quiet knowledge and contentment.  No matter what else happened, they would always be able to align their stars.</p>
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